1. The World Series

By TIME StaffFriday, Dec. 21, 2001

Gaetano / Corbis

If baseball were this great all the time, Bud Selig wouldn't be trying to shrink the league. With Manhattan smoldering, the Yankees bore the city's pain and pride to the Bronx and won three games there, snatching two with midnight dramatics. No sentimental ending, though. The Arizona Diamondbacks' spectacular pitching duo of Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson numbed Yankee bats in Phoenix, while a seventh-game, bottom-of-the-ninth rally provided a classic, and deserved, triumph for the home team.